Thursday, February 21, 2013

A learning experience blossomed when I spent the day at Bishop Strachan School (BSS) as a teacher on a Professional Development day which brought back many memories as I had once attended BSS in high school. I gained valuable insight to the Reggio Inspired Approach to teaching in the Junior School. Some of the things I picked up on were the idea of the Knowledge Building Circle, the Investigations which develop from the students, the open space concept, very organized space saving and utilizing ideas, the Big Ideas which are used as a thread throughout the curriculum, Earspelling, Integrating Inquiry Based Learning into the Curriculum, Evolving students' ideas, and Performance Based Assessment. The facilitators were excellent as they led the session through an Emergent Project, Tour of the Junior School, Question and Answer session, Panel discussion with current teachers, Review of a Study in a Grade 2 class followed by a reflection period for all of the participants. It was well managed and highly regarded as the new and emerging method of teaching and way of helping the students learn best.